Ask how many countries there are in the world and you will hear 193, 195, 197 or something else entirely. Travelers trying to count where they have been run into the same question. Here is how the common counts work, so you can pick one and stick to it.
193 or 195
The United Nations has 193 member states. Two more, the Holy See (Vatican City) and Palestine, are permanent observer states. Add them and you get 195, the number most travel maps and country counters use.
The places in between
Plenty of places feel like countries when you visit them but sit outside those 195:
Territories. Greenland belongs to the Kingdom of Denmark, Puerto Rico to the United States, and Hong Kong and Macau are special administrative regions of China. Each has its own flag, stamps or currency, and many travelers want to count them.
Disputed places. Taiwan and Kosovo govern themselves but are not UN members. Western Sahara is contested.
The UK's four nations. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are often called countries, but they are one UN member, the United Kingdom.
Some travel clubs keep much longer lists, splitting the world into hundreds of regions and islands. That is a different hobby, and a fun one, but it is not what most people mean by "countries visited".
Pick a rule
A simple rule that works for most people:
- 1.
Count the 195.
- 2.
Keep a separate list of territories and disputed places you have been to.
- 3.
Count a country once you have actually spent time there, not just changed planes.
That way your main number stays comparable with friends, and the extra places are not lost.
See it on a map
The free countries visited map on stampsy.app is built around this rule. It counts the 195 by default. Turn off "UN-Recognized Only" and it adds territories and disputed places as extras, without changing your main count.
The Stampsy app works the same way: a photo taken in Greenland still counts toward Denmark and also adds Greenland as one more place, while disputed land is shown but counted for no one.